1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for sawing a stone block, and more particularly to an apparatus for severing the stone block into a plurality of slabs.
2. Prior Art
Recently there has been an increased demand for slabs of stone such as marble, granite and the like to be used for flooring, walling and the like. Conventionally the stone blocks cut at the mine or quarry are transferred to the processing factory where said stone block is severed into a plurality of slabs which may be finished by grinding.
In a conventional processing factory there is provided a work bed on which the stone block is fixedly laid, onto which a rotary cutting wheel having a peripheral portion embedded with finely divided particles of any hard material such as diamond is manually pressed downwards and forwards. When the saw blade has been advanced along the stone block length to the opposite side thereof after having cut the stone block by a predetermined depth, the saw blade is retracted to the initial position for repeating the advance-cutting work. During the repeated reciprocal travels of the rotary cutting wheel along the length of the stone block, the cutting depth is gradually deepened to complete the cutting work. Such method has been widely adopted and used for a long time despite fact that the retractive travels of the saw is obviously inefficient for the cutting work. It is sometimes possible of course to cut the stone block in a single stroke, namely without repeating said reciprocal travels of the saw, but the feeding rate of the saw must be considerably slower in view of incrementally increased resistance.